The curious thing about medical groups and hospitals that want to be the “best in class” is that, often, they are already the leaders in the marketplace. Think about that for a minute. The top of the line wants to beat itself and set a new, higher standard. They know that they are good at […]
A fisherman’s first question is always: “Are they biting?” And regardless of the response, the second question is always: “What bait are you using?” It’s easy to see the marketing analogy. First, do your new business fishing where the fish are. And second, know the prospective patients’ healthcare advertising preference. Do they want digital or […]
Perhaps the only rock-solid prediction for 2018 is that hospital, medical group and healthcare marketing is the ever-present challenge to keep pace with change. Competition is tough, resources are precious, and performance expectations—delivering a solid return on investment—are always demanding. To achieve a new level of success in the New Year, industry leaders and marketing […]
[Healthcare Success Industry Leadership Podcast] Our distinguished guests today are Rob Klein, founder and CEO of Klein & Partners, and Toni Klein, co-founder and Digital Practice Lead at the respected healthcare marketing research firm. They are talking with Stewart Gandolf, CEO of Healthcare Success about the State of Digital Healthcare Marketing study by Klein & Partners […]
The name of the (nearly) new player is FACEBOOK LOCAL, which is blending the lines between social media and online local search. The introduction of Facebook Local Search could become a battle for digital turf —between search engine giant Google and social media giant Facebook—and it may morph into an important new trend. In time, […]
[Series Installment] Nearly all health systems, hospitals, medical groups and professional practices have two fundamental considerations in common. And the professional groups that are becoming breakaway successful have leveraged the new consumerism marketing. The first is dynamic—one that virtually everyone struggles with—is the tough competitive landscape. The quiet days of old-school healthcare are gone. The fast-pace […]
Most doctors are well respected, even beloved, by the vast majority of patients. In the broad spectrum of patient-provider relationships, physicians have a positive head start. As the widely held and generally correct stereotype goes, skilled and experienced professionals in the healing arts are intelligent, well educated who do good for patients and the community […]
More than a few physicians have gone into practice with the expectation, wish or hope, that marketing or advertising was mostly unnecessary. They believed that they would inspire a word-of-mouth-only (WOM) practice, and patient and professional referrals would do it all. Related: 9 Essential Steps to Improve Doctor Ratings Online That concept was popular, but […]
The concept of "If you build it, they will come,” doesn’t always work in business. There are no “set-and-forget” benefits from just posting a website. And simply being the good (the best, maybe even great) healthcare provider in town is no assurance that consumers will know it and lineup at the office door. Worse, we’ve seen a […]
Nearly 100 percent of the hospitals and medical practices that we meet in the course of a year want their business to expand. These are the marketing savvy doctors and communications professionals who recognize that medicine is a profession, but healthcare is a business. They usually represent the premier providers in a region—already holding a […]
Earlier this year, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was justifiably proud in announcing that the popular social media platform “is now officially 2 billion people. We’re making progress connecting the world…” He’s talking monthly active users, and by far, the most popular social networking site with YouTube registering second: The large, worldwide user count is impressive. But […]
Even casual Internet users are understandably fearful of online risks. This is a digital age of malware threats, identity theft and ransomware attacks. So there’s a good chance that any of us might instantly back away from a website with a Google Chrome “Not Secure” Warning. Google’s alert is cause for concern for some hospitals […]
As the Internet-age-old saying goes: The best place to hide a dead body is Page 2 of Google Search Results. This rule of thumb came to mind recently when someone questioned the purpose and value of Search Engine Optimization. Admittedly, SEO is challenging to understand, and even more difficult to do consistently…but as a starting […]
As a kid, it's likely you spent many Saturday mornings stuffing yourself on popular children's cereal while watching the cartoons and the animated ads that touted them. As adults, consumers are still responsive to animation. And healthcare animation is a popular and beneficial tool in hospital and medical group communications plans. A consumer’s earliest decision-making is […]
It is a remarkable and often painful mistake for doctors to assume that prospective patients know how to judge clinical quality in healthcare. Specifically, many doctors mistakenly believe that any prospective patient clearly recognizes that the competitive hospital or medical office down the street is lacking in quality of care. Thus, they believe, the other […]
If you picture the marketing and advertising process as a circle, success is when you close the loop. Getting the phone to ring is a good start and an important part of the loop. But an inquiry call—to a hospital, service line office or provider—doesn’t complete the loop. The ringing that you hear signals an […]
Communications professionals know the name Ivy Lee, considered the father of modern public relations. Few people appreciate that he also invented—and wrote—the first press release. That was a hundred years ago (1906). It traveled by regular mail and the common name “press release” probably came later. Many things about this time-honored publicity channel are still […]
[Community Manager Series Installment] The single most destructive force in reputation management and social media is neglect. Maybe it’s a misguided idea that says web stuff is a simple set-and-forget proposition. Perhaps every medical office is a super-kinetic challenge of being super-busy. Whatever reason—real or imagined…intentional or accidental—a critical community manager responsibility is to proactively […]
There are dozens of compelling reasons to include community marketing ideas, activities and outreach events in your plan. For any hospital or provider practice, working with the local public—down home at the grassroots level—is engaging, rewarding…and usually, a lot of fun. Community marketing engages and attracts prospective customers on a local level through their cities […]
Healthcare reform has been a topic of public discussion for many years. It’s a debate continues today. It seems that hospitals and providers constantly struggle to find ways to beat the competition. While various initiatives continue to search for an effective blueprint for change, competition is fierce. The health industry and the competitive landscape for […]
If you haven’t visited the Coca-Cola website, take a quick look sometime. Your hospital or medical practice does not have to be a global business icon for you to recognize why Coke’s website produces measurable results…and your website does not. Stick with me on this. There’s an insightful backstory to the comparison challenge, so I’ll […]
There’s a good chance that you navigated your way to this article with the help of our newsletter, Healthcare Success INSIGHT. For nearly a decade, our free marketing newsletter and blog have helped subscribers learn how to boost their marketing effectiveness. We thought this was a good opportunity to share some of how this works, […]
Here’s an insightful management and business reminder called “moving the needle.” It’s a useful metaphor for inspiring employees and achieving personal goals and recognition. It’s also about achieving greater success for the company. Recently, a business colleague told a story about an employee who was feeling under appreciated in the work they were doing for […]
Who needs Dr. Leonard McCoy’s classic (but fictional) Medical Tricorder when iPhone health is already in your pocket? (Some of it anyway.) There are various configurations of the Tricorder on the Star Trek TV show. By today’s standards, the devices were bulky, but they enabled: Instant diagnosis ailments/disease Track general metrics/vital signs Monitor ongoing health […]
[Community Manager Series Installment] The successful implementation of social media is the responsibility — and the credit — of your community manager. Every healthcare marketing situation requires a custom plan that artfully blends each of many strategies and tactics. There is no one-size-fits-all list of how-to steps. Successfully achieving the goals and objectives in marketing […]
The way we do video conference calls in our office at Healthcare Success is several measures of professional quality ahead of most everyone else. We’re proud of our video conferencing setup. It conveys a million-dollar setup, but the cost is low and the benefits are high. We’re often asked how we do it…and we’re pleased […]
[SHSMD17 Speaker Podcast Series] In this segment of our 2017 continuing series, Stewart Gandolf, CEO of Healthcare Success talks with Brent Westra, Marketing Segment Manager, and Andrew Tofilon, Marketing Segment Manager at Mayo Medical Laboratories. The topic of this podcast is Brent and Andrew’s presentation at the SHSMD marketing conference on their topic titled: Designing […]
[Community Manager Series Installment] Job titles and position descriptions will vary—social media manager, community manager, social media master or the like. But for social media (SM) to be effective, the first consideration is that someone is specifically responsible on a full-time or part-time basis. In healthcare marketing, social media shouldn't be an afterthought or a […]
Most communications professionals agree that email marketing is a major money-earning hammer in their marketing toolbox. The often-quoted ratio says that every dollar invested in email marketing can generate an average return of nearly $40. That’s a decent target, but some reports have an even higher ROI. Email marketing checklist... But beware. Triple-digit returns aren’t […]
The healthcare delivery industry changes daily. Given the many moving parts, creating and maintaining a brand connection today—for solutions the public may need someday—is a serious challenge. Consider how these variables are at work: On one hand, the quiet-and-compliant patients of the past have morphed into empowered consumers. They are better informed bring expectations of high value, […]
Let’s call this an informal Patient Experience survey—or a real-world test of “first impressions.” The thing is, this is something that actually happened to me recently. Please let me know what you would have done in my place. Having waited a couple weeks to get an appointment I was scheduled to see a doctor that […]
Wait. Before you do anything else today, check on your listings on Google. Recent changes in the local search routine could have dramatically slammed your standing. And your listing may have just been kicked downstairs. Here’s a little insight about local filters and how to help your listing. Our regular readers know that local listings […]
Each week I look forward to Chris Brogan’s business advice email. You probably know his name; Chris is a respected author, consultant and speaker…and he knows marketing. His notes are insightful, conversational and they deliver solid, practical guidance. Without mentioning hospitals, medical practices or doctors, his recent note about a Tale of Two Local Cafes […]
Why is it that when it comes to marketing, everyone seems to have an opinion? Colleagues, friends, staff, the plant lady, the guy cleaning up...everyone gets a vote. Worse, the people writing the checks often listen to whoever the last person was who offered them advice. A brief backstory about best practice marketing… For example, an […]
Back in the digital dark ages—a decade or so ago—simply having a website was enough to be found online. Early on, only a few healthcare practices and hospitals had a website at all. Two or three HTML pages put your online presence miles ahead of most everyone else. But not so today. To be found […]
Talk about a scary scenario—hospitals remain high profile and high-value targets for ransomware cyber attacks. It's been an ongoing threat for decades — worldwide and throughout the United States. We’re not a cyber security company, but clients, providers and hospitals voice concerns about their online presence. Understandably, websites—built for healthcare marketing and communications—are at risk […]
There’s a point of critical need in a business growth curve when you can’t go it alone. Without the resources of a healthcare marketing agency your hospital or medical enterprise is destined to slow, plateau or shrink in the heat of competition. This is a significant step for any organization, and it’s vital to identify […]
Our friend and colleague Rob Klein—a consumer authority for hospitals and doctors—told us this story from a research focus group. Many people in the group agreed that the glass window at the front desk made patients feel unwelcome. A glass window seems to be standard issue for every doctor’s office on the planet. But it […]
It’s a challenge to follow the trends attached to the future of the Internet and video marketing. Depending on your choice of stats, better than 80 percent of all web traffic is expected to be video by the end of the decade. That’s just a couple years down the road. One particularly fast moving—and nearly […]
This post spotlights a few easy but useful little marketing and communications ideas. Each of these gems is completely unrelated to each of the others, so feel free to grab one or more, try it out, and put it to work today. Then let us know what you think. IDEA #1: Don’t write long and […]
[Second of two parts in a continuing healthcare marketing series] Today’s consumer is constantly, and instantly, exposed to “nearly everything.” Thus marketing must connect with consumers in precious micro-moments at precisely the moment of need. Micro-Moment Marketing travels at the speed of thought. At least 150 times each day, people interrogate their smartphones—with the standard […]
[A continuing education series in healthcare marketing – First of a two-part article] Micro-Moment Marketing travels at the speed of thought. Today’s consumer—which is virtually all of us—is constantly, and instantly, exposed to “nearly everything.” Thus, marketing is changing to connect with consumers in micro-moments, and at precisely the moment of need. Marketing buzzwords tend […]
Not long ago, I received an iPhone snapshot of a doctor/client. No doubt someone in his office grabbed a quick picture—convenient but low quality. In the kindest of terms, the photo was crappy quality. This was definitely not the executive portrait of a distinguished, experienced and respected provider. Professionals working in marketing, advertising and public […]
Some day in the nearly immediate future, it wouldn’t be surprising to find a bold warning label on the latest-and-greatest smartphone that cautions: Negative effects include a need for instant gratification and loss of patience. It may not be on the consumer packaging, but these are real cautionary words straight from Pew Research Center’s Internet […]
There are some highly effective, but elementary marketing tools in your healthcare promotional toolbox. They’re fundamentals, but they shouldn’t be overlooked. These tips, tactics and ideas deserve this spotlight reminder of the hardworking fundamentals. Some are low cost, while others…well, not so much. But done right, all are highly effective contributors to success. Think of […]
Doctor’s offices don’t always recognize when their routines and procedures work against their efforts to win new patients or retain current patients. The patient experience begins with an instant demerit. People who need an appointment are already dealing with a measure of stress. And medical providers should not make it difficult for patients to access the […]
[Part of a continuing series] A colleague told the real-world story about seeing a group of senior citizens talking about their grandchildren. To our observer, the curious part was that each of the 70-plus-year-old grandparents had their smartphone in hand, complete with proud-moment pictures and videos. This snapshot is a micro-moment reminder of how personal […]
[Part of a continuing education series.] Simply mention learning Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and more than a few professionals will roll their eyes upwards. Virtually all marketing-smart individuals truly appreciate the vital importance of SEO. But they also know that it’s a specialized skill set and vocabulary that they would rather leave to the tech-smart […]
About the only big thing that these little marketing maneuvers have in common is that they all boost results. Take them. Use them. These tips come from a collection of “short-but-effective” marketing tricks that professionals will use often (but rarely reveal). The power of personalization marketing tricks… One of the least appreciated marketing concepts that […]
At the risk of sounding like a loveable-but-annoying coach, it’s midyear and time to check your healthcare marketing plan. What's the score? Are you attracting more patients? Six calendar pages are missing, so climb above the daily grind and take the 35-thousand foot perspective. Have you achieved half of your planned objectives…or are you stalled? Check-in […]
